Making a Homemade Berkey Water Filter

Are you like me?  You want a Big Berkey water filter, but you just can't justify spending so much on one?  Well!  Did you know that you can purchase the filter elements and make one yourself, from a couple food-grade buckets?  It won't be as fancy as a real Big Berkey.  It probably won't be as rugged as the real deal.  But it will work.



A note:  I can't claim credit for figuring this out.  I learned of it from How to Survive the End of the World as We Know It, by James Wesley, Rawles.

I made one.  And I took some pictures.  So I thought I'd show you how easy it is.

What you need:

2  six-gallon, food-grade water buckets (You can use smaller buckets, but they aren't recommended.)
2  black Berkey purification elements, with priming button
1 spigot, if you want to use one
1 1/2" drill bit

I didn't have a 1/2" drill bit.  So I went to my go-to guy for hardware.  He said that most home drills aren't big enough to accommodate a standard 1/2" drill bit.  But they make a 1/2" drill bit that narrows down at the end so you can fit it in your drill. I got one, and it worked perfectly.  So that's probably what you'll need, too.

I got my black Berkey purification elements from the Berkey Guy.   I bought from him because he was the last supplier I found on the Internet who was still selling them for $99 and including a free Sport Berkey Water Bottle Portable Water Purifier.  Everyone was selling them for this price last year.  Now, no one is.  Even the Berkey Guy has raised his prices since I got mine. (2 black Berkey purification elements are now $107, and the Sport Berkey is $24.99).

The process is simple:

1. Prime the purification elements.
2. Drill holes for the purification elements in the bottom of one bucket and in the lid of the other bucket.
3. Put the purification elements through the holes in the bottom of the bucket, with the elements inside the bucket, and tighten the wing nuts.
4. Install the spigot in the bottom bucket, if you want one (I did not).
5. Assemble the Water Filter.
1. Set the lid with the holes on the bucket without the holes. 
2. Put the bucket with the purification elements on the other bucket with the lid, with the stems going into the holes in the lid (the clean water drips through the stems). 
3. Put the lid without holes on the bucket with the purification elements in it.

Then just pour your dirty water into the top bucket and wait for your clean water to drip into the lower bucket.  If the water has a lot of particulate matter, you'll get better results if you pour it through a couple layers of cheese cloth before pouring into your new filter--you can go longer without cleaning the elements.

So.  Let's get started.

First, you need some clean water to prime the purification elements.  I had some bottled water on hand, so I used that.  It took a 20-oz bottle of water to prime each element.  If you have nice water from your faucet, you can use that.  The instructions for priming the purification elements are in the box.

The priming button looks like a tan rubber gasket.  It goes over the stem and rests against the bottom of the element.  The priming process forces water backwards through each purification element, wetting it and flushing out any residue.  The priming button serves to prevent (mostly) water from squirting out while you're forcing the water backwards through the stem and into and through the element.

You hold the element firmly against the faucet (you'd probably have to take the little screen off) or against your water bottle, and force water through it until it beads up on on the surface of the element and runs down.

Once the elements are primed, you can set them aside.  It's time to drill some holes.

I found it easiest to put the bottom bucket on the floor, with its lid on top, and put the filtering bucket on top of the lid.  That way I could make sure the holes in the bucket lined up with the holes in the lid.  I drilled my holes about 3 inches from the side of the bucket, which left plenty of room for the elements.  The downside to this method is that you have to clean little bits of plastic out of both buckets.

Then I installed the elements.

And finally, I stacked up the buckes to make my filter.

Oops!  Despite my care I got the holes in the lid in the wrong place, and the filter bucket doesn't quite sit on the lid of the lower bucket properly.  Ah well.  It still works.

So.  How do I like it and what have I learned?

It's easy to use.  I just take a third bucket (labeled "Dirty Water") out to my rain barrel and fetch some water.  Pour it into the filter bucket, and a few hours later I have clean water in the lower bucket.

Yeah.  That's right.  A few hours.  It is not a fast filter.  But there are a few things you can do to speed things up.

1. Keep the water level in the filter bucket topped off.  The higher the water level in the filter bucket, the greater the water pressure against the filters, so the faster they filter.  Just make sure you don't overflow your bottom bucket!
2. Use 6-gallon buckets.  I used 4 1/2-gallon buckets, because when I wanted to order them Emergency Essentials was out of the bigger buckets and I was impatient.  But by using 6-gallon buckets, I would have started with the water level higher, and would have gotten clean water faster.
3. Get 4 purification elements instead of 2.  You can cut your filter time in half.  This also lets you filter a lot more water before you have to replace your purification elements.  Of course, it costs twice as much up front.

Each element will purify pu to 3000 gallons.  So if you have 2 elements in your filter, you can purify 6000 gallons before you have to purchase more elements.  And if you have 4 elements, you can purify 12000 gallons before replacing them.  Of course, when you do replace them, it costs that much more!

Another thing to remember is that you can clean the black Berkey purification elements several times.  They recommend using a ScotchBright(r) pad.

You can put a spigot in the bottom bucket, to use it as a dispenser.  I decided not to do this for 2 reasons.   I forgot to purchase a spigot!  But also, I already have a couple water dispensers.  So I just collect water in the bucket and pour it into the dispensers I already have.

I got my first dispenser from The Water Crock Shop.  They have a very nice selection of water crocks.  You can either get a lid, like I did, or put a water bottle on top.  The crock, by itself, holds 2 1/2 gallons of water.

But the water crock was too big for my tiny bathroom counter.  So I picked up a glass dispenser on sale at my local Fred Meyer store.  I think it's supposed to be for serving Limoncello.  But I'm using it for nice, clean, water.



Now, next time the power goes out for a week or so after a winter storm, I'll have all the clean, fresh, water I can drink!  And you can, too!



Creamy Soup Base Review

I've been ogling the Creamy Soup Base over at Emergency Essentials for a while now, so I finally decided to give it a try.  I am sure glad I did!  It makes wonderful cream-of-broccoli soup.  I've also used it for making creamed peas and scalloped potatoes.  I haven't tried this yet, but I'll bet you could make good mac-and-cheese by melting some cheddar cheese in it and pouring it over macaroni.

The only real down side is that the ingredients aren't the most healthful:  1060mg of sodium and 11g of saturated fat per serving.  And a serving is only 1 cup, so I usually eat 2 servings at a time (a big bowl of cream-of-broccoli soup and a chunk of homemade bread is an awesome lunch!).  This is probably not something you'd want to eat every day.  On the other hand, fats are one of the most difficult food categories to store for more than just a few months, so this could be valuable in a well-rounded food-storage plan.

I make my soup a little healthier by adding a little white bean flour (from Bob's Red Mill) to the soup mix before adding it to the boiling water.  You can, of course, make a cream soup with just the white bean flour (the recipe is on the package),  but it's lumpy--the recipe on the package tells you to put it in the blender before serving it.  And the bean-flour soup doesn't have any seasonings in it (the chicken bouillon in this soup mix has some seasonings).  So I just add some bean flour to the creamy soup mix.  You have to be careful, though.  If you add too much it makes the soup lumpy.

But soup from this mix tastes good, is versatile, and is quick and easy to prepare.  I makeit when I'm too tired to cook a "real meal".

Here's how I make my cream-of-broccoli soup:

First, I measure out 1/2 cup soup mix, and put it into a 1-cup measuring cup.  Then I add a spoonful of white bean flour.  I start 2 cups of water to boil (do not add salt--there's plenty in the soup mix).  While the water is coming to a boil, I cut up some broccoli--about 3/4 cup.

When the water comes to a boil, I whisk in the soup mix, then turn down the heat, because this likes to boil and you want it to only simmer.

The soup is supposed to simmer for 10 minutes.  About half way through that time, I add the broccoli.  I've learned that you shouldn't wait too long to add the broccoli, or it will taste raw.  Of course, you don't want to put it in too early or it might get too mushy.  I use thawed-out frozen broccoli, so it's been blanched (before it was frozen), so it's partially cooked.  If you're using fresh broccoli from the garden, it might need to cook longer.

And that's it.  After simmering for 10 minutes it's done.  Easy, peasy, Cream of Broccoli soup.

Oh, there is one thing.  The recipe on the can says to "Whisk 1/4 cup Creamy Soup Base into..."  so I was picturing the kind of whisk that you'd use for whisking eggs while baking.  But a gravy whisk works better.

Onion Relish

My younger brother has been giving me a bad time for not posting anything to my blog for the last few months.   I haven't really been doing anything lately, food-storage wise.  But looking back, I see I never posted about a couple projects from a few months ago.  So here we go.

Sure, you can store onions in your root cellar (assuming you have one--I don't).  But some onions don't store well.  And besides...wouldn't you like to do something new with your onions?  How about Onion Relish?  Sounds weird, doesn't it?  But it's actually quite tasty.

I got the recipe from Blue Ribbon Preserves, by Linda J. Amendt.  I used Walla Walla Sweet onions in my relish (so yeah, this was from last summer).  But I'm sure normal onions would be good, too.  I'll bet red onions would be beautiful.  The recipe calls for white wine vinegar, rather than ordinary white vinegar.  I had to look around my grocery store a little bit before I found it.  It was with the specialty vinegars in fancy bottles, not with the gallon jugs of white or cider vinegar.

Here's the recipe (of course, all the normal safety precautions should be followed):

Makes about 4 pint jars

8 cups finely chopped sweet onions

1 tablespoon pickling salt or kosher salt

1 ¾ cups white wine vinegar
1 cup sugar
1 tablespoon minced fresh tarragon or ¾ teaspoon crushed dried tarragon
2 garlic cloves, crushed or minced

1. In a large bowl, layer the onions and salt. Gently stir until well combined. Let sit 4 hours.
2. Prepare canner, jars and lids.
3. Drain the onions thoroughly. Press out the excess liquid.
4. Make the relish:
1. In a 6- to 8-quart stainless steel pan, combine the vinegar, sugar, tarragon, and garlic.
2. Over medium-low heat, gradually heat the mixture, stirring constantly, until the sugar is completely dissolved.
3. Increase the heat to medium-high and bring the syrup to a boil.
4. Add the drained onions to the syrup.
5. Reduce the heat to medium and simmer for 10 minutes, stirring frequently.
6. Remove the pan from the heat
5. Ladle hot relish into hot jars, leaving ½ inch headspace. Remove air bubbles and adjust headspace, if necessary, by adding hot relish. Wipe jar rims and threads with a clean, damp cloth. Center lid on jar. Screw band down until resistance is met, then increase to fingertip-tight.
6. Place jars in canner, ensuring they are completely covered with water. Bring to a boil and process for 15 minutes. Remove canner lid. Wait 5 minutes, then remove jars, cool, and store.

Wait at least a month before opening jars of relish, to allow the flavors to fully develop.

I didn't get 4 pint jars from this recipe.  The onions reduce by almost half while sitting in the salt for 4 hours.  I had purchased enough onions for 2 batches, and I got 5 pint jars out of the 2 batches.  I made two separate batches.  I did not combine into one batch.

This is a very mild, slightly sweet, relish.  I've used it on both hamburgers and hotdogs, and I really like it.  But I don't like really hot food.  This might not have enough zing for something who likes spicier food.  I also found that if I put mustard on the hotdog or onions on the hamburger, I can't really taste this relish. 

I don't remember whether I used my 6-quart or 4.5-quart stainless-steel pan, but there was plenty of room for this recipe--you don't need to worry if you don't have an 8-quart pan.

I Made Jam!

I wanted to use my new canner, but there's really nothing in season yet.  Strawberries will be ready soon, but not yet.  So I tried an exotic jam recipe form Blue Ribbon Preserves, by Linda J. Amendt:  Coconut-Pineapple Conserve.

This isn't a frugal recipe, as it uses canned pineapple and purchased shredded coconut (from Bob's Red Mill, of course!).  But not everything has to be frugal, right?  Everyone deserves a little luxury now and then, right?  So what if I could buy blackberry jam at the grocery store cheaper than I can make this?  I can't buy Coconut-Pineapple Conserve at the grocery store for any price.  So what the heck, this IS a frugal recipe--for a luxury item!

For those who may not know what a conserve is, it's a jam that uses fresh and dried fruit and nuts.  Or in this case, canned and dried fruit and nuts.  The recipe called for macadamia nuts, but I didn't have any.  So I substituted pecans.

Here's the recipe:

Coconut-Pineapple Conserve

A refreshing tropical spread, it will remind you of warm, sunny days in the islands.

Makes about seven 8-ounce (half-pint) jars

2 (20-ounce) cans crushed pineapple, lightly drained
¼ cup bottled lemon juice (not fresh)
5 cups sugar
2 (3-ounce) pouches liquid pectin
1 ¼ cups shredded or flaked coconut

1 cup chopped roasted macadamia nuts (or pecans)

1. Prepare canner, jars and lids.
2. Make the jam:
1. In an 8-quart stainless steel pan, combine the pineapple and lemon juice. Gradually stir in the sugar. Over medium-low heat, stirring constantly, heat the mixture until the sugar is completely dissolved.
2. Increase the heat to medium-high and bring the mixture to a full rolling boil, stirring constantly. Stir in the entire contents of both pectin pouches. Return the mixture to a full rolling boil, stirring constantly. Boil, stirring constantly, 1 minute. Remove the pan from the heat. Stir in the coconut and macadamia nuts.
3. To prevent floating fruit, allow the conserve to cool for 5 minutes before filling the jars. Gently stir the conserve to distribute the fruit.
3. Ladle hot jam into hot jars, leaving ¼ inch headspace. Remove air bubbles and adjust headspace, if necessary, by adding hot jam. Wipe rim. Center lid on jar. Screw band down until resistance is met, then increase to fingertip-tight.
4. Place jars in canner, ensuring they are completely covered with water. Bring to a boil and process for 10 minutes. Remove canner lid. Wait 5 minutes, then remove jars, cool, and store.

This jam is so good, I actually like eating it right out of the jar.  I think it would be really good in little tarts, maybe on top of a layer of mango curd (the recipe is also in the book), for a real tropical treat.

Of course, it's good on homemade biscuits, too.

I also made Banana Butter, from the same book, and Tropical Breeze Freezer Jam from the Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving, which is edited by Judi Kingry and Lauren Devine.  I thought the Banana Butter was a little too sweet.  But the Tropical Breeze Freezer Jam was as good as the Coconut-Pineapple Conserve.  Yum!

Oh by the way, the package of shredded coconut from Bob's Red Mill has a recipe for chocolate macaroons that is really, really good!  I've had macaroons from a bakery that where this sticky, too-sweet gob of coconut.  Not these macaroons.  They're light and fluffy, and full of chocolatey coconut flavor.

More Hamburger Jerky

I really liked the hamburger jerky I made a few weeks ago, and I wanted to make some more.  But I'm too cheap to want to keep buying the packaged spices for making jerky.  So I Googled "hamburger jerkey recipe" and found several recipes on the Internet.

One website I found had easy instructions.  Basically, they said to add 1 tsp. curing salt and 1/4 cup teriyaki or BBQ sauce to every pound of hamburger.  How can it get any easier?

So I ran to the store and picked up a package of Morton's Tender Quick Home Meat Cure and a bottle of Teriyaki sauce.  Then I grabbed a thawed-out pound of hamburger, mixed it with the Meat Cure and teriyake sauce, and pressed out strips of hamburger on my dehydrator trays.  I dehydrated it for several hours, then cooked in the oven at about 200° for an hour.

The jerky wasn't very flavorful.  I'm not entirely sure the Morton's was what they meant when they said "curing salt."  Maybe I shouldn't have gotten the cheap teriyaki sauce.  Next time, I'm going to try 2 tsp of the Morton's with 1/4 BBQ sauce and see how that goes.

Also, the hamburger I had in the freezer was 80% fat free--which means it was 20% fat.  That's fine for making spaghetti sauce, but was too much for jerky.  My hands were covered with grease by the time I finished mixing in the salt and sauce.  Next time I'll use the lowest percentage of fat I can find, like I did the first time.

Maybe I'll try 1 1/2 tsps Morton's before I go all the way to 2 tsp.

While poking around on the Internet I discovered that you don't need to get a jerky gun to make hamburger jerky.  After mixing in the curing salt and seasonings, you can put the hamburger between two layers of Seran Wrap (or equivalent) and roll it out with a rolling pin.  Then cut strips with a kitchen knife.  I'll bet that would get you more even strips that what I've been doing with the jerky gun.

How to Store Soaps and Lotions Economically

Along with food, water, and toilet paper (Dude!  Do you want to go 6 months without toilet paper?), you need to think about storing enough soap and lotion to last the length of time you're storing food for.  So...why not think about making your own soap and lotion? 

It's true that you can buy cheaper soap at the grocery store.  But if you want the good stuff, that doesn't dry your skin out, it costs more--so why not make your own?

When you think of making your own soaps and lotions, you have several options.  You can make your soap from scratch, using raw materials, and the cold process or hot process method.  You can make your own lotion from scratch, using raw materials.  You can purchase melt-and-pour soap bases and add colors, fragrances, and/or other additives.  And you can purchase lotion bases and add fragrances and/or colors.

Personally, I gave up making lotion from scratch a few years ago.  I just wasn't getting the results I wanted.  After experimenting with sample lotion bases from my suppliers (listed in the Soapmaking Resources at the right), I found a couple bases--one for lotion and one for cream--that I really like.  I usually purchase a gallon of each base at a time, then make up enough to fill 3-4 bottles or jars (also available from the resources at the right) each time.  Sometimes I leave them unfragranced, sometimes I add fragrance.

What do I, personally, use for lotion and cream bases?  For lotion, I like the "Lotion Base- Gallon" from Bramble Berry.  Its first ingredient is aloe vera, so I know it's good to use after I go out in the sun.  If you don't use too much, it soaks in quickly and doesn't feel greasy.  And it gets rid of the middle-age crinklies on the backs of my hands (something my from-scratch lotion never did).  For cream, I like "Body Cream Base" from MMS.  I don't use it on my hands during the day because it does leave a little bit of a greasy feeling.  But I put it on my feet before going to bed, and it is wonderful for keeping the skin on my feet moist and supple.  It's also great for rubbing into dry knees or elbows.  All the suppliers I've listed have a variety of bases.

Now, for soap.  I make my own soap from scratch.  Really, it isn't hard to do.  There are lots of resources available:  books, tutorials on the Internet, and mailing groups.  I'd suggest Googling "soap making" and reading the sites that come up.  If you're interested, I'd recommend getting a couple books (or more!).  The Soapmaker's Companion, by Susan Miller Cavitch, has been the the bible for soapmakers for a long time.  While I don't agree with everything she says, this is an excellent resource.  Smart Soapmaking, by Anne L. Watson, is a great resource, but it shouldn't be your only book on soapmaking.  She has a radical method for telling when the soap is ready to pour into the mold.  I haven't tested her theory myself, so I don't know how good it is.  I still rely on the method of pouring at "trace".  The Everything Soapmaking Book, by Alicia Grosso, is also a good resource for the beginning soapmaker.  With any soap recipe from a book or the Internet, it's a good idea to double-check the amount of lye to use (every author makes mistakes, and some books are known for printing lye-heavy recipes).  Bramble Berry and MMS both have good lye calculators, and http://www.soapcalc.net/calc/soapcalcWP.asp is another good one.

If you make your own soap from scratch, you need to deal with lye.  You can't make soap without lye.  If you use melt-and-pour to craft soap bars, you don't have to deal with lye.  But the manufacturer used lye when they made the melt-and pour.  So don't believe soap crafters who tell you their soap is better than cold process because it doesn't contain lye.  Whether you make soap from scratch or use melt-and-pour soap base, there isn't any lye left in the soap.  It has all reacted with the oils and fats you added to make soap.

There are soap artists who make absolutely stunning soaps with melt-and-pour bases.  I rarely use melt-and-pour myself, though, because I prefer cold-process soap.  But you can make beautiful soaps that are better than what you buy in the store.

Back to the subject of lye.  You have to take precautions, which I'm not going into here.  But the books listed above do discuss how to safely handle lye, and most on-line tutorials also discuss it. 

Because dissolving NaOH in water to make your lye is an exothermic reaction (it generates heat--quite a lot of it), and you want your lye no warmer than 100° when you make the soap, many people mix their lye the night before and let it cool overnight.  If you do this, be sure no one can accidently spill it or drink it.  Years ago I was on a mailing list with an experienced soapmaker you did this.  Her husband got up in the middle of the night to get a drink of water.  Because he was half asleep, he forgot that the pitcher on the counter was filled with lye.  And he poured himself a glass of lye instead of a glass of water.  He survived the experience, but his mouth, throat, and esophogus were horribly burned, and permanently damaged.  The moral of this story:  Be Very Careful with Lye!

Now that I've scared you about lye, let me say that it can be handled safely.  You just need to be careful.  You can't go on autopilot with lye.  You have to think about what you are doing.

So, why would you want to make cold process soap?  Because you can make a rich, creamy, soap that doesn't dry your skin out, and that smells better than anything you can buy in the store.  If you want to go the natural route, you can use essential oils to fragrance your soap.  Or you can use one of the many [non-natural] fragrance oils available for soapmaking.  Personally, I almost always use a fragrance oil. 

As a teaser, here are some pictures of soap I've made.

I just made this green soap today.  I wanted it green because I used Woodland Elves fragrance oil, which smells like Christmas trees with some Christmas spices.  For the color, I used Yellow #10 die in the entire batch of soap, plus Seafoam Green pigment in a couple cups of soap that I then swirled into the yellow soap.

I made this blue-swirled soap last year.  I used the Woodlands fragrance oil from Sweetcakes.  It's a knockoff of a Bath & Bodyworks mens' fragrance.  It doesn't smell like trees, as the Woodland Elves above.  But it's a wonderfully sexy men's fragrance.  I used blue ultramarine (cosmetic grade, of course) to color this.  You may notice the the blue swirls have little blue speckles.  That's because I made this soap before I discovered that you really need to blend the colors in with an immersion blender--stirring isn't good enough.  Also, I experimented with using the silicone baking molds you can get in the kitchen department of grocery stores.  The ones I got worked well, except that the sides of the loaf mold bowed out somewhat.  But the soap un-molded very easily.  I've heard reports of soap picking up some red dye from some of the red silicone molds, but that didn't happen to me.

This is a batch of soap that is still in the mold (or was when this pic was taken).  I used Vanilla Hazelnut fragrance oil from MMS.  This is one of my all-time favorite fragrance oils.  But like most vanilla fragrances, it turns soap brown (the vanilla part oxidizes).  In this batch, I left some of the soap un-fragranced so it would stay cream-colored.  And I swirled that into the fragranced part, and fluffed up the top. 

This soap is my most beautiful attempt to make a nice, scrubby gardener's soap.  I made the lye with chamomile tea instead of water, and put ground-up and whole calendula petals in it.  Chamomile and calendula are both supposed to be good for your skin, and I figured that gardener's hands need a little extra help after they've been out digging in the dirt.  I added a little bit of Yellow #10 for color, and cornmeal for scrubbiness.  But the cornmeal was too scrubby--it hurt my hands.  I'm still experimenting with gardener's soap.  I haven't gotten one I like that's as pretty as this soap.

This is a picture of a couple bars of soap I made some time ago.  I don't remember what they are, but I suspect they're my two favorite ones.  I believe the one on the bottom is a bar of Vanilla Hazelnut, and the one leaning against it is a bar of Honey Almond.  I usually put ground hazelnuts in the vanilla hazelnut soap, for extra cleansing.

So, what about storing your soap and lotion?  They should be stored in a cool, dry, location just like your stored food. 

I have soap that has still been good 5 years after I made it.  The fragrance was mostly gone, but the soap was still good.  So you can make several batches of soap and store them wherever it's convenient.  If you cycle through your stored soap as you do your stored food, you shouldn't have any problems.  You probably shouldn't store it too closely with your food.  Your food should be sealed so I shouldn't pick up any fragrance from the soap, but it's better to be safe than sorry.

You have to be more careful with stored lotion.  Most of the manufacturers say their lotion should be used within a year of the date purchased.  Kept cool and dry, lotion can probably last longer than that, but you never know.  Remember that lotion is a wonderful environment for growing bacteria, molds, and funguses--that's why they require a preservative.  I don't store as much lotion as I do soap.  I'd recommend keeping at least a few month's worth in storage, and cycling through it as you do your soap and food.  I keep mine in the gallon jugs, and only make up (add fragrance and put into bottles) a few bottles or jars at a time.